Didactic fiction; Political fiction; Social problems -- Fiction
The article was a sarcastic summary of the results thus far from the
inquest, done in the _Thunderer's_ best manner. So far, the editorial
writer pointed out, the inquiry had been confined to examining
chambermaids, bell-boys, and the police, and to quarrelling about the
exact location of the fire when it started. The _Thunderer_ hoped that
before closing the inquest the coroner would have the courage to go
higher, and to probe the building department, and to ascertain what Mr.
Bloom's connection with the matter was, and whether his inspectors had
ever made a report on the Glenmore. Further, the coroner might to
advantage summon the officers of the hotel company, who had erected
this fire-trap, and the architect whose plans for a fire-proof
structure had been so lamentably inadequate. The _Thunderer_
understood that the Glenmore Hotel Corporation was one of those paper
corporations, officered by clerks, behind which unscrupulous
capitalists so often shielded themselves. Of the officers whose names
appeared in the papers of incorporation, three were clerks in the
employ of a contractor named Graves, who had built the hotel, and a
fourth was a prominent young architect, who had prepared the plans for
the building. The people of Chicago wanted to hear what these men had
to say about the Glenmore hotel, especially Bloom, Graves, and Hart.
"Look higher, Mr. Coroner!" the _Thunderer_ concluded solemnly.
When Helen came into the room a little later, she found her husband
plunged in thought, the sheets of the newspaper scattered about him.
"What is it?" she asked quickly.
He picked up the paper and handed it to her. She read the article in
the _Thunderer_, her brow wrinkling in puzzle as she went on. When she
had finished it, she let it fall from her hands, and looked at her
husband inquiringly.
"They want you to go out there and tell about the building of the
hotel?" she asked.
"Yes," he answered dully. "I knew it would come sooner or later. You
see I was not only the architect, but Graves made me the treasurer of
the corporation. I was only a dummy like the others," he explained.
"The corporation was just Graves! But I told Everett that I should go
back and tell what I knew. Only he doesn't think it necessary, now!"
"What would happen? What does it all mean?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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